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To the Vents and Back
Vas stopped mid-step and spun on his heels back to the captain. “Iodine pill from the Doc … with love. For you ‘n the Lieutenant,” he said, passing over the pills before double timing it to the cargo bay. He had taken his already. Vas slung the tool belt over his shoulder since it would be a pain to be crawling around with it on his wait. He shoved in his radio and an extra roll of duct tape before heading up the vent to get into the underbelly of the ship. ‘What could go wrong?” Vas muttered to himself, taking off the bolts of the vent. "Only a fuel leak, right? Could be worse? Could be way worse.” He said to himself clambering into the vent and military crawling through the cramped space. “The one time Gill would have been handy and I have him watch the dogs.” He huffed, feeling very claustrophobic at the moment. Twice he had to detangle and zip tie low hanging wires to past through and maybe it was his imagination but it felt like the vent was getting smaller and smaller! Maybe it was him? Nope. It was smaller the closer he got. His elbows weren't going out as far and it really slowed down his progress. “How’s it going, son?” Keller called into the mic. “Near there yet?” Vas struggles in the cramped space to dislodge his walkie talkie. “It’s … smaller than expected in here but I am almost there?” “Good job, let’s get this done,” he called back. “Before we go --” “Could be worse .... could be SO much worse,” The punk reminded himself moving forward. Given he didn’t have a watch, just a flashlight to guide his way he worked at pushing himself forward. “Dark.” As if on cue, the engineer cut the power, and the interior of the ship was plunged into darkness. “Waiting on you!” The captain hollered into the vent. It was like being on the inside of the bell as the Captians voice echoed down the vent. He was sure the Reavers clear across three galaxies could hear Keller! Thankfully Vas was at the location and wasted no time getting to work. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as simple as flipping a few switches; he tried that, but there seemed to be a deeper problem. “What’s going on--” the hell was the kid’s name again? “Kid?” Vas was busy checking the wires for the fault when one sparked as he tried to kick over the back up generator. “Yuan ni dedao gaoceng renshi dì renke?!" (May you be recognized by people in high places) He cursed, getting shocked. “I think I found the problem,” he said in a flat tone. “That you haven’t yet turned the emergency lights on?” Keller asked, rolling his eyes in the darkness. “I’m on it, Captain!” The punk called out, fixing the bad wire, changing out a fuse and holding back the urge to hit the damn thing a couple of times before trying to kick it over again. The generator sputtered to life as if upset for being so rudely awakened. “Yea yea file complaint to Human Resources.” Vas grumbled as he began the crawl backward. There was not NEAR enough room to turn around. The cabin was immediately bathed in red lights, as was the shuttle and the entire ship. They were on emergency power and the captain cued up the mic to the ship. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking; our emergency generators are engaged meaning you’re free to move about the ship at this time. We’re going to ask that for the time being you stick to the galley and common area, or your room. Just in case anything happens - which it won’t - we’ll be able to find you and direct you as to where to go.” It took twice as long crawling backward out of the damn vent and by the time he did he came out a single uniform color covered head to toe in dust and gunk that had collected in there over the many long years. He coughed, trying to pat some of it off, sending out giant plums of crap around him. “Gorram it … I need a smoke,” he said, heading to engineering to get her to the Medbay.